In the past two decades, the Colorado-based company, which has a local office in San Marcos, has become one of the most dominant and respected builders of public infrastructure in the San Diego region, across California and throughout North America. Flatiron handles more than $1 billion in contracts annually, with more than half of that revenue from California projects alone, according to the company’s local vice president.

Nationally, Flatiron has amassed an impressive portfolio of projects — from the new eastern span of the San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge to the replacement of the I-35W Bridge in Minneapolis after the 2007 collapse. In this region, its projects have spanned Fallbrook to Otay Mesa.

People who have worked with Flatiron locally said the company is known for its high quality, low bids and emphasis on safety at its construction sites. And while not every Flatiron project has gone smoothly, the company has a strong record of delivering projects on time and at or under budget, several regional government officials said.

“They’re definitely a force in our region,” said Jim Linthicum, who oversees construction projects for the San Diego Association of Governments, which plans the region’s freeway and transit networks. “They do a really great job sharpening their pencils so they can be competitive on a lot of our projects.”

Focus on clients

Jeff Turner, a San Marcos-based vice president for Flatiron, attributed the company’s success to its focus on customers, which include SANDAG, Caltrans and city governments.

“We look at projects the way our clients look at them,” Turner said. “They want safety, they want value and they want quality.”

Innovation is another key, he said.

In 2005, when heavy rains flooded the company’s Lake Hodges worksite along the yet-to-be completed I-15 Express Lanes, Flatiron crews built walls into the lake bed, pumped out the water and resumed building the now-completed carpool corridor, Turner said.

Efforts like that one have impressed clients such as San Marcos City Engineer Mike Edwards, who dealt with Flatiron as the company rebuilt a traffic-choked freeway interchange in San Marcos. That work was finished last year.

“The people they put on the projects are real professionals,” Edwards said. “They know what they’re doing, both in the office and in the field. They’re collaborative. They’re quality-oriented. It all comes down to the people.”

Building massive bridges and freeways takes specialized engineering and management skills. But it also takes considerable financial wherewithal. Flatiron is among relatively few companies in the region able to meet bonding capacity requirements for large-scale public works projects, said Jerome Stocks, SANDAG’s former chairman. Those bonds are essentially insurance policies that guarantee a contractor will meet its building obligations. To its advantage, Flatiron has the backing of its parent company, Hochtief of Germany, one of the world’s leading construction firms. Hochtief purchased Flatiron in 2007 from the Dutch company Royal BAM Group.

Road bumps

While Flatiron has forged a reputation for completing projects without significant problems, it’s also been a part of two jobs in San Diego County that hit major road bumps.

In the mid-2000s, Flatiron helped build North County’s 22-mile long Sprinter rail link from Oceanside to Escondido. The transit line opened in 2008 — more than two years behind schedule and scores of millions over budget. Transit officials have attributed those problems to flawed engineering designs and price spikes for certain materials, both issues that were beyond Flatiron’s control.

In 2005, years before the line opened, the San Diego County Taxpayers Association gave the North County Transit District its dubious “Golden Fleece” award for the Sprinter, citing the project’s cost overruns. The transit agency had estimated in 2004 that the Sprinter project would cost taxpayers $351 million. The final tab: $477.6 milllion.

Turner said Flatiron doesn’t regret being linked to the Sprinter, which has struggled mightily to meet early ridership estimates.

“We’re proud of it,” Turner said inside the company’s San Marcos office, where a large banner that includes the Sprinter and several other Flatiron projects hangs on the wall. “Were there frustrations? Sure there were. One thing that can be said of the team (of contractors) is that we continued moving (forward).”

Another Flatiron project with a series of challenges is the Santa Margarita River Bridge replacement on Camp Pendleton. Record flooding in 2010 wiped out much of the construction the company had started on the new rail span, Turner said.

The project suffered another setback around Labor Day in 2012, when the new bridge’s scaffolding collapsed after becoming infested with ship worms, a sort of “sea termite,” Turner said. That left the new span’s partially built super-structure distressed and eventually spurred Flatiron to demolish most of it after consulting with the North County Transit District, Turner said.

The bridge project is about a year behind schedule, and the financial cost of the delays and reconstruction has reached the “seven figures,” he said.

Rail passengers can expect to travel over the new span soon. It opens to trains on Nov. 18, according to a SANDAG spokeswoman.

Future targets

Looking to the future, Flatiron hopes to build two of the biggest transportation projects on San Diego County’s horizon.

The first is the nearly $2 billion Trolley link proposed from Old Town to University City, with stops on the University of California San Diego campus. Flatiron, as part of a team of companies, has submitted a bid to build the much-anticipated transit extension.

Flatiron is also eyeing the planned expansion of Interstate 5. That $3.5 billion Caltrans project calls for building a carpool corridor down the middle of I-5, from La Jolla to Camp Pendleton, similar to the one Flatiron built on Intersate 15.

No bids have been accepted on the project, which must still gain a key permit from the California Coastal Commission. If approved, the I-5 expansion would be broken into phases and could keep construction companies like Flatiron laying steel and pouring concrete for decades.

“We’re very interested in the I-5,” Turner said.

To stay successful in landing — and completing — project after project, Flatiron must keep evolving, he said.

“We have to be competitive and understand the needs of the client. That’s what we try to do,” Turner added.

Local Flatiron projects

• San Diego International Airport: $500 million joint venture to build Terminal 2 expansion; Flatiron’s portion included building the airfield for 10 new gates. Completed this year.